Notations on Life
by RagnartheSemiGreen
Summary: A year and a half after the death of Kira, the world has finally overcome the chaos of the sudden removal of the Angel of Death. At this point, a new note is dropped into the world, and a new threat emerges.
1. Chapter 1

**Kentucky, Central United States, May 3, 2012**

"Why do it?"

They ask, "You know that you are evil, you know that your actions are evil, so why persist?"

They never stop. "Why do you continue to rend families apart, to destroy lives, to murder?"

Ever. "What do you get out of it? Does this make you feel any less small and worthless?"

Always muttering in the back of my head, always judging and commenting. "Do you feel like a big man now, with the blood of hundreds on your hands?"

How I'd love to end them. "How many must die before you feel better about yourself?"

All of them. "What will make you stop hurting?"

Unfortunately, even I cannot kill voices that nobody else hears, that speak to me in the night.

"Why did you kill us? Arkady, Arkasha, why did you kill me?"

**Southeastern Arizona, United States, November 11, 2009**

Another day past, another day gone. Finally.

It'd been a long day, another day pissed down the drain. High school continued as expected, with the weak hindering the strong, and the teachers overworked and uncaring. I sat in the back of my classes, dressed in greys and blacks, and doodled in my notebooks while fools toiled away. In fact, the only interesting thing that had happened was a fight breaking out during one of the passing periods, between two of the wannabe Blood gang members who seemed to infest our school's outermost hallways. Watching the two fools beat each other bloody was amusing, if ultimately pointless. Both were hauled off to meet their righteous punishment, and I returned to my boredom. During lunch, one of the thugs came over to my usual corner table and disturbed my solitary lunch. After spending five minutes attempting to provoke me, he gave up. As he walked away, I followed him with my eyes, and watched as he returned to his table, with his thuggish friends. All of them deserved to die.

As I stood up and left the cafeteria, I felt as if I was consumed by apathy. I was a Christian, and thus told by my God to help and defend the weak, and to spread peace, but I didn't want to spread peace. My instincts, the imp that crouched on my shoulder and poured poison in my ear, commanded that I hurt, that I maim, that I kill. That didn't interest me either. My hormones, pumping through my 15 year old body, commanded me to breed, and, while that did interest me, any sexual impulse drowned in the sea of apathy that filled my head and heart. However, there was one bright spot, one beacon of bright, white, light that shone in the grey void: My shrine and devotionals at home.

About four years ago, my family lived in Japan, on the US Army base of Camp Zama, near Tokyo. We were evacuated when, during the autumn of 2005, a large detachment of FBI agents sent to Japan were all murdered by someone, or something, known as "Kira".

A year after that, in San Antonio, Texas, I had watched the commandant of Brooke Army Medical Centre drop dead of a heart attack at a speech given after his Court Martial found him "not guilty" of embezzlement of funds meant for reconstructive surgeries of veterans. Before he died, he publically announced that he was guilty, before revealing the hiding places of the embezzled funds. He also announced that these revelations and that his fast-approaching death were due to the efforts of "Lord Kira".

Needless to say, I became fascinated with Kira. I had never seen death before, nor had anyone close to me had died, save for elderly relatives. To see a healthy, robust, middle-aged man snuffed out from existence was an important event for my formative years. While my parents, when asked, agreed that Kira was a criminal, and a murderer, I devoted my precious internet time at school to finding any scrap of information about Kira that I could. I watched the tapes released by the Second Kira, I watched the news reports on the attempted arrest, and death of, the so-called Third Kira, Kyosuke Higuchi. I read the press statements released by the great detective "L", and I followed the rise of the Cult of Kira during the last half of 2006, and the first part of 2007. Most importantly, I saw and read about how the leaders and princes of the world kowtowed to that same Cult and its mysterious godhead, and noted when the statements of the American government became identical to the ideology of the Cult.

I remember when, in 2008, Kira seemed to disappear: No more criminals, celebrities, or politicians died, the Cult of Kira stopped issuing press statements, and the world seemed to hold its breath, as if waiting for an inevitable punishment. That scouring of the newly emboldened criminals never occurred, and the crime rate skyrocketed. The state and federal police, having grown lax in their duties due to Kira's frequent interventions, were taken unprepared. The National Guard and detachments of active-duty soldiers were sent to reestablish order in major cities all over the nation, and in Canada and Mexico. Soldiers were hastily recalled from all over the world, brought home to garrison and secure the homeland, as well as the newly established protectorates of Canada and Mexico. While the United States clamped down on North America, Japan, Great Britain, Australia, and most of Europe were able to restore order after a few tense and occasionally bloody months during the latter half of 2008.

The real fallout from Kira's sudden absence was felt in Africa, where none of the old grievances had ever been forgotten, much less forgiven, in South America, where the starving poor fought the their governments, and criminal cartels undermined both sides, and in Asia. With the exceptions of Asiatic Russia, Japan, and parts of China and India, Asia descended into chaos. Governments rose and fell almost by the week, and each day brought news of new atrocities. In Indonesia, hard-line Muslims seized power, and began the ethnic cleansing of the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indo minorities, as well as the destruction of the Indonesian Christians. In India, a country always teetering on the brink of mass-famine and provincialism, a 28-sided civil war broke out between a wide variety of former states, ethnic groups, geographical regions, ex-Governmental forces, and a variety of Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist groups. This civil war was snuffed out, not by foreign or internal intervention, but by a famine horrible even by modern standards. After the death of 45% of the former population of India in a period of a year and a half, from the middle of 2008 to present day November, 2009, the civil war degenerated into less of a war, more of a struggle for survival. China underwent a similar situation, further exacerbated by attempts by the People's Liberation Army to subdue cities by "Any means found appropriate for the situation." After the remainder of the Chinese government used nuclear warheads to obliterate the primary foci of resistance in Shanghai and Hong Kong, the remainder of China was brought back under the control of the Central Government, which had headquartered itself out of the northeastern region of China. Restoration of government superiority, however, did nothing to stop the widespread famine that devastated both the coastal regions, and China's impoverished interior.

While China and India collapsed, North Korea bunkered down, and defied the world. This would have passed unnoticed and uncared for by the world in general, until the collapse of South Korea's government, brought about by the sudden withdrawal of all foreign support, and food and raw material shipments. During this time of weakness, the North Korean generals took the initiative to finally reunite Korea, and crossed the Demilitarized Zone in force. Seoul was ground to dust between the artillery of the NKPLA, and the desperate urban warfare waged by Seoul's residents and surviving garrison against the onslaught. The resurgent United States, in a move to underline its continuing authority and power in the Pacific, responded to the North Korean actions with a massive and immediate deployment of troops to the Korean Peninsula in January of 2009. Beginning with a relentless campaign of offshore shelling, carpet bombing of the entire Korean Peninsula, and continuing with the "liberation" of Korea, the Second Korean War easily surpassed the brutality of the First Korean War. Waging a scorched earth campaign designed to utterly obliterate North Korea as a state, the US troops first landed in the far northern part of North Korea, and began a long march through enemy territory, leaving not a single standing building, intact road, unscorched and salted field, or any Korean of possible threat alive. Learning the truth of the saying that "the People are the sea in which the guerilla swims" from the previous wars in the Middle East, the proposed and executed plan boiled down to removing the sea entirely. The plan worked, and the campaign was successful, both as a military maneuver, and as a propaganda tool. After marching through the entirety of the former North Korea, and shelling the remainder of the country into a Verdunesque state, the US forces withdrew entirely back to bases in Japan and North America, leaving an utterly destroyed land and people in its wake. All of this was done within five months.

Pakistan destabilized in a manner similar to India, only with a nuclear exponent. The entirety of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Kashmir, Tajikistan, and southern Iran were left uninhabitable, as well as significant portions of western India.

The Middle East imitated Africa, as all old feuds suddenly and bloodily reactivated. Israel and her allies fought against the remainder of the Middle East, while Sunni fought Shi'a, Christians fought Muslims, and the rapidly starving populations fought for necessities everywhere.

Africa rode a wave of ethic cleansings, genocides, wars, ambushes, massacres, retributions, and mass starvation and disease to beat out Asia for sheer anarchy. To this day, the cycle continues, picking up greater and greater momentum as it goes.

I share this brief explanation of current world events, not to bore you, but to explain my longing for the days of Kira, and the incredible adoration I had for the entity that could bind humanity, and whose mere absence could cause the profoundly world-shaking events of 2008 and 2009. I was not interested in the justice of Kira's cause, but the power, the influence, and the sway he still held over humanity. Even in the darkest months of the last year and a half, the Cult of Kira retained high membership, and considerable influence over culture in both the Eastern and Western worlds.

I wanted that power. I was, and still am, unattractive, with a "disturbing" and "creepy" personality. All throughout my schooling I was taunted for my foreign name, for being the son of immigrants, for being strange, and for knowing and doing things that none of my peers could possibly understand. I craved understanding and connection, but was rejected at every turn. I had no friends, no allies, no followers, save for my family, Lord on high bless them.

I learned that, no matter how hard you tried, without power, you were nothing. I saw those far less than I, who had no rich parents or Adonis like body, gain and lose friends and companions as if they meant nothing, were nothing. I saw good, caring people crushed into the dirt for the sake of common cruelty. I saw those who did nothing hurt float to the top, like feces in floodwater. I hated those who were what I could not be. I hated those who mocked me, taunted me, called me "Comrade" and insulted my parents. I hated them, envied them, and began to grow into myself.

You can understand, I am sure, why, when the opportunity was offered, I accepted without a single qualm.

Returning to my long day, with its eagerly awaited reward of an hour's worth of peace at my shrine, I left the school about half an hour after the release bell rang, not wanting to go out into the biting wind that swept across the high mountain plain any sooner than was necessary. Sadly, my time to linger was past, as my after-school shift began in twenty minutes.

Leaving school, I walked past a long-deserted lot, where the decaying ruins of an old Cult seminary sat. As I walked past the remnants of the high-water mark of Cultic influence, I noticed a small speck of black on the sidewalk up ahead. I wondered what it was, and if it might be worth anything at the local pawn shop. A few weeks back, I'd found someone's college textbook on the crosstown bus, which had netted me fifteen dollars, the equivalent of thee hours of my wages.

When I reached the spot where I'd seen the black object, I found a small notebook, about two thirds the size of a standard spiral notebook. Reaching down, I picked up the notebook. The cover under my hand felt like leather, smooth and supple. I turned the notebook over in my hand, to look at the front cover, to see if there was a name or anything. On the front, written in white lettering that contrasted the ebony cover, was "DEATH NOTE".


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: In this story, Light died in mid-2007, with Misa suiciding shortly after. Ryuk immediately returned to the Shinigami realm after Light's death. After the destruction of Kira, mass chaos consumed most of the world.**

**Southeastern Arizona, United States, November 11, 2009**

After work, I returned home, exhausted from dealing with school and work, and with homework to do, and with an hour still to go before my devotionals at my shrine.

"Hello? I'm home!" I yelled as I opened the front door. As expected, nobody was at home.

Both of my parents had used the US Army as a means of gaining American citizenship. My father, Ivan Piotrovich Maslak, had been born in Leningrad, in 1964, He had studied at the Leningrad State University, and had joined the Red Army as an officer in the infantry. Lieutenant Maslak had been a soldier of the Red Army during the expedition into Afghanistan, and had been part of the rearguard during the retreat across the Afghan-Uzbek Bridge. My mother, Natalia Ludmilonova Chernova, was born in Moscow in 1970, had studied at Moscow State University as a laboratory assistant, and had met my father in 1990, in Moscow. Both emigrated immediately before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and had entered the United States with the promise of military service. My father had returned to the infantry, while my mother worked in one of the hospital laboratories.

Nineteen years later, our family was assigned to Ft. Huachuca. My father had transferred to the Military Police, so as to be able to get assignments that allowed him to remain with the family, while my mother still worked in the base hospital as a laboratory technician. My father, despite his previous career, has managed to obtain the rank of Major, while my mother is a First Lieutenant. Unfortunately, both of them work long hours, meaning that I only see them for a few hours per day. Most of the time, the only family I see much is my little sister, Galayna Natalionova Maslak. Currently, she is at one of her friends' house, leaving me alone.

Setting down my backpack, I grabbed a can of Pepsi and sat at the kitchen table, and got my textbooks out. I'd forgotten about the strange black notebook that I'd picked up earlier, until it fell out of the bag along with my biology textbook. Grateful for another distraction from the dull tedium of homework, I picked up the notebook, and put it on the table in front of me.

"Death Note" I read aloud, tracing my fingers over the white lettering. A strange thing to have on the front of a notebook indeed. Maybe I shouldn't sell it to a pawn shop, lest I be put on some kind of police watch list.

"Death Note" I said again. "Wonder if this has anything to do with the Cult. This'd probably be right up their alleyway, the sick bastards."

I crossed myself when I mentioned the Cult. Despite my parent's childhoods in Soviet Russia, both were practicing Eastern Orthodox Christians, as was I. Galayna, my sister, was an atheist. Interestingly, she was also the one with the greatest approval of the Cult.

I opened up the notebook, turning to an elegantly decorated page, covered in semi-arcane symbols, which surrounded a bulleted list, written in English.

My naturally bibliophilic nature taking over, I began to read the bullets aloud.

"Death Note: How to Use It… Someone must have put a great deal of thought into this…" I muttered, wondering at the strangely crude handwriting, as if the words had been written with a blunt charcoal stick.

"The human whose name is written in this note… shall die." Yep, definitely had something to do with the Cult. What had I found? Still, I was intrigued…

"This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his or her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected." Ghoulish as this whole thing was, it followed certain logic. If nothing else, this notebook could lead to a fascinating case study for the psychology of a nut.

"If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the victim's name, it will happen."

"If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack." I thought back to the soldier I'd watched be struck down by Kira, and how he died from a heart attack. Without question, this notebook was connected to Kira. I felt strange holding an artifact of the dead God in my hands.

"After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next six minutes and forty seconds." At this point I closed the book, and placed it back on the table. There were several other pages of notes, but I'd read enough to realize that the notebook was not to be trifled with.

I thought about my options. I could hand the book over to the police, but then I would lose access to its powers, and I would be a "person of interest" – not a good thing for a first generation immigrant loner to be.

I could destroy it, but, if I did, an item that had some sort of mystical power would be forever lost. Besides, the notes referenced a "Shinigami" as the owner of the book. Did I want to aggravate a Japanese death god? No telling how it'd react to the destruction of the notebook.

I could show my family the notebook, but they would insist on getting rid of it or destroying it.

Or, I could keep it, and decide to use it or not later. I could just hold onto it, and let it sit someplace, unused. "But there are too many people in the world who deserve death" I murmured, "For that to be the right thing…"

As that thought crossed my mind, I remembered an older, female friend of mine who, even as I thought, lay in a hospital bed under a suicide watch. Julia Ross was eighteen and beautiful, with an easy charm and a welcoming smile. She had been brutally raped and beaten by one of her coworkers, a twenty-six year old man named Trent Achenson. The man had been arrested, tried, and been given a meager one year prison sentence and a two year probation period. Julia had to get sixteen stiches, twelve in or around her vaginal area, to partially repair the physical damage that he'd inflicted on her, and would never recover from the psychological scarring of such a violation. The bastard had a punishment that would last a year, while she would be punished for life for no crime but to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His death would be a suitable test of the Death Note's veracity.

I returned to the kitchen table. Across from me, an Orthodox crook-barred cross hung, the center perfectly aligned to the "D" in the white words scrawled across the notebook. I briefly genuflected to the hanging cross, and reminded myself that the upkeep to the shrine dedicated to St. Titus had not yet been performed.

I redirected my attention back to the Death Note, and opened to the first available page, after the table of rules. I picked up the pen from tin can full of writing implements that sat near the center of the table, and firmly fixed the face of Trent Achenson in my mind. Then, I lowered my pen to the open leaf of the notebook and, in my best handwriting, wrote

"**Trent Achenson: Dies at precisely 8:23 in the evening on November 11, 2009, due blood-loss resulting from self-castration, performed with a butter knife." **

Such a specific death would serve threefold purpose: The first and most important would be the fulfillment of my revenge on the man who dared hurt a friend of mine; the second, Achenson would be purged of his sin, for, is it not written "If your hand leads you into sin, cut it off"; finally, Achenson's death would prove to me that the Death Note could fulfill its billing. I could hardly wait to watch the 9:00 news.


	3. Chapter 3

**Southeastern Arizona, United States, November 11, 2009, 9:17 PM**

I switched off the TV and returned to my room, suppressing the giggling that was on the cusp of exploding out. I had done it! I had avenged Julia's pain and humiliation with the blood and life of her attacker, and, in the process, had taken a human life. I'd always wanted know what it felt like, to hold the life and existence of another person in the palm of your hand… And I'd always wanted to know what it'd feel like to squeeze.

I entered my room, closing the door behind me, and kicked a pile of dirty clothing in front of the crack between the floor and the door. I closed my eyes, and felt the suppressed mirth bubble up and explode from between my lips, almost as if I were vomiting forth laughter. Instead of a normal laugh that one might hear after some particularly good joke, a high-pitched, jagged scream of a laugh split the dusty silence in the room. As soon as one laugh finished, another ripped out of my throat, until I gradually subsided, and opened my eyes.

I was no longer alone.

Sitting in front of my window, staring directly at me, was a humanoid monstrosity that bore a strong resemblance to a gargoyle, hunched on the desk as it was. The face of the abomination looked sewn on, as if it had been cut off a previous owner and poorly attached to its current occupant. The wings that were spread to either side looked disheveled and rotten, like those of a crow who had died days previously, and had been rotting in the desert sun since. The remainder of the apparition was no better, grotesque and misshapen, with the appearance of a mannequin, hastily assembled by unskilled labor.

"You don't seem surprised. At all. How odd." I jerked slightly; I had been standing completely still, no doubt with a look familiar to those who have hit deer at night in automobiles. The thing's utterance managed to break my stasis.

"Hello. What are you, and what are you doing here?" I asked, desperately trying to maintain my composure as the creature leapt off the desk, and unfolded itself to a full height of maybe six and a half feet.

My composure became much harder to maintain when the creature focused its lantern-like eyes on me, and gave me a smile that would have fit perfectly in a slasher movie.

"You can call me Ryuk! I am a _Shinigami_, a god of death!" Here Ryuk paused, as if waiting for some kind of outcry. After a moment, "What, you aren't going to scream or anything?"

"Would it make it any easier?"

"No, but it would entertain me."

"Sorry. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm sure, but again I must ask: What are you doing here?"

He gave me another ghastly smile, this time making me shutter noticeably before straightening back up.

"Well, human," he seemed to relish the word "I am here because some fool picked up the Death Note that I accidentally dropped here." At the word "accidentally", the being suddenly looked shifty.

"Do you want it back or what?" I asked.

"Did you read the rules on the first few pages?"

"Yup. Quite illuminating. Thanks for including them. In case of _accidents_, I'm sure."

"Ooh, you are interesting. Anyway, since you read the rules, you should know what I'm here for."

"So, you are stuck here until I'm dead?"

"Until the owner of the Death Note is dead, since it can pass from your ownership."

"Are you planning on hastening the process?"

"Not yet. When you get too boring, I will. Count on it."

With that, he walked around me, and through the door. I sighed, threw the Death Note under the bed, moved the pile of dirty laundry, and followed him on down the stairs. In the kitchen, my mother and sister were eating instant noodles, sitting at the same table where I'd written "Trent Achenson" and how that bastard would die. Neither my mother nor my sister reacted in any way to the grim monstrosity that was currently capering on the ceiling of the kitchen, and only reacted to my appearance with a few tired, muttered greetings.

"Hello. Did you have a nice day?"

"Yes, Mom. You?"

"Yeah. That bitch Poole won't shut up, but alright nonetheless."

"Glad to hear."

While my mother and I exchanged pleasantries, I saw that, behind her, one of the apples sitting in a basket of fruit appeared to be making a break for freedom. Fucking Ryuk… Did he have no concept of subtlety, or staying out of sight? How annoying.

I returned to my room, followed by an appley Ryuk, who wiped his claws on my bedspread.

"So…"

"Yes, Ryuk?"

"Who ya gonna kill next?"

I sat for a moment, considering the question, and thinking.

"Hey Ryuk? What do you think the correct use of the Death Note is?

"To entertain me. Oh, and to kill. Obviously."

So much for help there. I thought back a few years, to when the pain and chaos that the world was still awash in seemed overwhelming. I thought about those who took advantage of the situation.

Without replying to Ryuk, I turned to the computer, and connected to the Internet.

"Well Ryuk, since I am already a murderer, I might as well continue on, and take a few more scalps. However, I still want to be a force for good. So, I think that I am going to put together a list of the worst criminals of the post-Kira collapse, and finish them off. After that? I think I'm going to destroy the Cult of Kira. I hate those bastards."

At this point, Ryuk fell over with laughter, the fit of humor overwhelming the Shinigami for a few minutes, before he subsided. "Well, at least you didn't proclaim yourself a god too."

"What do you mean? Who do you think I am, Kira?"

He began giggling again. "No, but you could be!" He started laughing again. I decided that this was an unproductive conversation, and, turning back to my computer, began my search.

I decided to be creative in my destruction of my victims, figuring that a simple heart attack would be too easy.

I spoke my judgments as I scribbled out the deaths. "Tonya Leland, will believe that she is being flayed alive. Will feel pain and any sensation equivalent to being flayed. Will last 8 hours, during which time her sanity shall degrade to an animalistic level. Will finally bleed out after clawing off as much of her face as possible."

Ryuk snorted. "Ya know, Kira was incredibly slaughter-happy, but he was never a sadist."

I turned back to Ryuk. "I'm not Kira; he, she, or they are dead. Also, a heart-attack is far too kind for the like of these scum. I'm sure that your precious Kira would agree."

"Oh, hit a sore spot?"

"Not so much, just annoyed with this constant yammering in my ear."

"You are like him. Not as smart, not as attractive, but one hell of a lot more vicious."

At this remark, I grinned. "Glad to hear. Maybe I'll be able to surpass that miserable bastard myself. Maybe" here I looked over at Ryuk, amusement in my eyes "Maybe I will become a god!"

Ryuk facepalmed, and then chuckled. "Oh yeah, you'll be interesting, all right."


End file.
